
•4 o 



^^/ ,^^' % • 



' .^" 









* . , ^ • ^0 "V^ - c „ ' 









,<&>' ../.. ^<*> 





0,> o " » - 'T-i «v .v'*^ '<y>. 



V-O^ 




'oK 




^^c 






.^ 



,Hc 



^^"b- 





V-^' 



-t..o^ o^ 



























v^^ it. 



/ 



JOHN NAGLE'S 
PHILOSOPHY. 



"Nature offers all her creatures to him 
as a picture language. " Emerson. 








Compiled by 
". • ' o''\'. .^>^^n®V ^- Pratt. 



'It IS long ere we discover how rich we are. " Emerson. 



MANITOWOC, WISCONSIN. 
1901. 



1<^:^'^1\^ 

.^y' 



<. 



THE tIBRARY OF 

GONG«ES3, 
Two Ccwisa Reoeiveb 

FEB. 4 ^902 

COT'RtOHT ENTRY 

/S-Ce-. ■]_' <7 ot 
CLASS «- XXa w«. 

X % w t^ 
COPY B. 



Entered according to the act of Con- 
gress, in the year 1901, in the office of the 
Librarian of Congress, at Washington, by 
SYDNEY T. PRATT. 



All Rights Reserved. 



(^ bis mmaz is (Affectionately dedicated 
to milliam Renry Carles, m. D., in 




recognition of ftis wortft in bis cbosen 
profession, and in tbe spberes of 
manbood, action, intellect and f riend- 
sbip. Tew men appreciate to a greater ex- 
tent, tbe elegance, deptb and beauty of tbe 
pbiiosopby of tbe late 3obn Ragle tban does 
Dr. earles, and no man appreciates tbe doc- 
tor's bigb professional bonor and skill, bis 
Kindly beart, entertaining wit, aggressi^^e 
acbievements, and modesty more tban does 
tbe undersigned to wbom bis unfailing 
friendsbip made tbis i^olume possible. 

Sydney C. Pratt. 



FOREWORD. 

Sec. Mcr.— How is this man esteemed here in the city? 
Angelo— Of very reverend reputation, sir, 
Of credit infinite, highly beloved. 
His word might bear my wealth at any time. 

Shakespeare. 

Such was John Nagle. A succinct analysis of his charac- 
ter and, withal, a keen insight into the motives guiding him 
arc found in the words of one who knew him intimately: 

"It might be difficult to say what was included in Mr. 
Nagle's conception of character. It would not be difficult 
to indicate some things that certainly were not included m 
it. His standard rejected absolutely the man who need- 
lessly wounded the feelings of a child; the man who allowed 
himself to use indelicate language in the presence of boy, 
or girl, or woman: the man who shirked duty or responsi- 
bility because to meet it might cause him inconvenience or 
loss, or subject him to danger; the man who betrayed a 
trust, a friend, or a woman; the man who denied an obliga- 
tion which rested solely in parole, and to which there was 



no witness but himself and the person who demanded per- 
formance: the man whose word was not his bond m any 
matter whatever in which it was pledged: the man who 
extended his hand when you were prosperous, and, who 
looked the other way when he passed by in your day of 
adversity. * * * 

"When measured by these tests which, he, himself applied 
to others, or, by any test that may reasonably be applied, it 
is fondly and confidently believed, by those who knew him 
and loved him and mourn him and will hold him in 
remembrance while life lasts, that, in his own phrase and m 
Its broadest and fullest meaning, John Naglc was a man 
of character." 

John Nagle early m life evinced a love of literature, mak- 
ing good books his life-long companions. History, phi- 
losophy, science, and poetry had equal fascination for him and 
each contributed its moiety to his expanding intellectual 
vision. Men and women about him afforded him opportu- 
nity for observing character, which he quickly seized, and 
the columns of the old Pilot tell the story of his masterful 
analysis of human motive. The plummet of his reason- 
ing sank deep into the souls of men, giving him guage of 
impulse and action. Below the surface he discovered the 
passions that sway and the virtues that restrain. His was 
the School of Life in which he studied until the twilight 



came. Then, when the horizon darkened, he closed his eyes 
upon a useful career, and fell into a peaceful slumber from 
out of which no sound of time or place shall wake him. 

Mr. Nagle wrote to make life purer and sweeter. He 
understood the besetting traps laid to snare the young from 
paths of rectitude, hence, in no uncertain language did he 
show his solicitude for them. The impress of his person- 
ality, example, and writings is evident. 

Testimony is frequent: "I consulted Nagle and am the 
benefciary of his counsel." The youth sought his advice 
and profited by it. The reason Mr. Nagle attained wide 
influence is found in the application of his own philosophy 
to his own life. He was a man of strong convictions, and 
his opposition to social sham and veneer was implacable. 

As a writer beauty characterized his diction. His power 
of expression was not surpassed by writers whose names 
adorn the Temple of Fame. The loom of his subtle intel- 
lect spun sentences which, for grace and lucidity, are English 
models. Language was an art with him; he knew words, 
their force and tenderness, and could call them to his service 
at will. He joined m indissoluble union, poetic expression 
and profound thought, bringing about this literary 
marriage by rigorous adherence to his native tongue, pure 
Anglo-Saxon. His unvarying rule in writing was the use 
of simple idioms: no straining after effect is anywhere 



noticeable, and this fact constitutes his ifst charm. His 
sentences flow as easily as a rivulet, one following the 
other m sequence until the end is reached, then it 
would be defacement to add or take a word away. 

The purpose of this volume is to preserve the literary 
gems which had their origin and form m the mmd of Mr. 
Nagle. His personality brought him into an unique relation- 
ship with the community where his active life was spent and 
the Compiler believes, that, in thus collating some of the best 
specimens of his writing, the excerpts will be read and reread 
by those who knew John Nagle, with kindly remembrance of 
the man who caused the genial rays of a sunny and optimistic 
mmd to brighten, for many years, their hours of relaxation, 
when his paper brought to them the doings of restless life. 
He gave to his readers, however, more than contemporary 
news, the mere gossip of the drawing room; he gave them 
an uplifting philosophy, as noble m conception as it was 
exquisite in its developement. "Make man happy," he 
wrote, "and his life is a paean of praise. And what is the 
source of happiness? Judicious enjoyment of the things 
that are." Let this principle be universal and you solve the 
vexatious and ever recurring asperities engendered by the 
unequal distribution of wealth and social position. 

His philosophy would make men happy whatever their 
situation, yet he was not indifferent to material and intellec- 



tual progress. He knew, however, that sinister jealousies, 
aroused by envy, retard advancement, invite gloom, and end 
m retrogression, and he would obviate such catastrophe, in 
individual or collective life, by living in the light. 

In the pages which follow no word of politics is found. 
The scheme of the book is to reveal that, in Manitowoc, a 
master of English phraseology, a poet of no mean order, 
and a philosopher once moved among the people. The pulse 
of genius throbbed within his brain, and the seed of his 
reflections has been sown with prodigality, bearing fruitage 
m many lives here and elsewhere. 

And, now, in yielding the succeeding pages to a more 
gracious pen the Compiler wishes to acknowledge his in- 
debtedness to the man who gave felicitous expression to 
lofty ideals. It is inexpressibly delightful to be brought 
into touch with a mind so free from dissimulation, intellec- 
tual trickery and ambiguity, and in this inadequate way to 
perpetuate his memory. THE COMPILER. 



1^^ 



CHRISTMAS=TIDE. 

The holiday season comes when Mother 
Earth has least warmth in her heart for us, 
when the winds have lost their voluptuous 
softness, and heaven's blue its tender depths. 
The early frosts, that mellowed Nature's love- 
liness ere destroying it, have deepened in inten- 
sity, and clutch with chilling grasp where before 
they touched with gentlest though blighting 
caress. The clouds sweep on wings of chill- 
ing blasts with sinister motion, while the Al- 
pine piles on the horizon seem like mausole- 
ums of vanished summer. Nature has ceased 
to smile, and we must turn to the heart of 



friendship for the warmth which the soul 
covets and which gives buoyancy and hope to 
life. 

It is winter in the heart which knows not 
love. Selfishness is a misery at this season 
when to live within oneself is to bar out the 
spirit of good will whose fruitage is the 
Christmas gift. Those deft fingers which 
have fashioned the offerings of affection for 
some loved one have been the active agent of 
a kind heart centered on a benevolent purpose. 
That gift is a visible token of regard; pure, un- 
selfish, holy; typifying the divine precept: "It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." 
Evil cannot be joint tenant in the mind that har- 
bors generous thoughts. Regardless of our 
belief or disbelief in the divinity of the Child 
whose first draught of life was poverty, as deep 
as his sympathy for the sorrows of the children 
of man, that birth has been the beacon light of 
charity. The Star of Bethlehem which guided 



the Chaldean shepherds may no longer direct 
the faithful to the true God; but the fitful 
gleam of benevolence shines out with steady 
light at this time and leads to a higher plane 
of humanity==a realization of the favored Utopia. 
Man, seek not thy brother by the light of 
creed when good will has made all the world 
kin. The symphony of love through the lips 
of laughter and the voice of kindly greeting; 
the prayer of gratitude which speaks through 
the kindling eye and the warm hand clasp 
have no formula of words to provoke conten- 
tion. 




A COUNTRY BOY. 

A country boy is happy in his deprivations 
when Nature is at her best, because then his 
soul can lave unstinted in her beauties, and his 
whole being become photographed with her 
charms, --sympathetic with her moods. The 
song of the bobolink has in it for him more 
than the pleasure of melody. It quickens the 
imagination, and awakens every slumbering sus- 
ceptibility of youth. The blue heaven is but 
a screen which hides from mortal vision the 
abode of the blessed, and the shimmering beams 
of sunlight are angels' smiles. The delicate 
blossoms of the wild plum rise before him as 
things of beauty, not as a promise of the fruit- 
age it will be later his privilege to despoil, 
and the bursting buds of elms, fragilely beauti- 
ful, are trysting places for the winds and sun- 
light m their wooing. 



AN OLD TIME PICNIC. 

The picnic of the olden time has fallen into 
disuse. It came then at rare intervals, and left 
no evil in its track. It was marked by inno- 
cent jollity and a feast in the green woods. 
The viands might not of themselves have been 
tempting, but keen appetites and genial fellow- 
ship lent their aid to make of a frugal spread a 
rare symposium. The boys and girls were 
just what the words mean, and knew how to 
appreciate a holiday from the very rarity of the 
occurrence. The whole crowd could not by 
pooling their capital get cash enough to pur- 
chase one glass of beer. Swings were made 
of the masts of the basswood and these took 
the place of the dance of older gatherings. 

The picnic now-a=days has a bar as an invar- 
iable accompaniment. Yes, and the catgut 
squeaks, or the brass band brays, and the feet 
keep time to these measured sounds. 



The boys are young men, the girls, young 
ladies, carrying fashion's trappings to the ex- 
tent of being decorously blase. The bare leg- 
ged, collarless boy is no longer an attendant 
upon picnics, and yet it seems as if there is 
getting to be a void up in that adult plane of 
true manhood because that bare legged boy has 
quit his former haunts. That bare legged lit- 
tle rascal has quit the country school and some- 
how that school has grown weak in real strength 
though its tinsel dress has put it more in ac- 
cord with the times. The girl with coarse 
cloth dress and heavy shoes has gone too, and 
there seems to be but few recruits for the ar- 
my of womanhood. That happy border land 
where the young life expanded into genuine 
adult maturity through responsibilities and hab- 
its which properly belong to that period, has 
been given over to the keeping of the stilted 
formalities of social demands. 



DANCING. 

Dancing is not wrong in itself. It is a form 
of amusement which, indulged in properly, has 
high value as a recreation. But it should not 
invade the domain of duty. When it does, it 
is an evil. Any form of amusement which 
trespasses on duty, or makes duty irksome, has 
reached the realm of dissipation, and is fraught 
with danger to the participants. When danc- 
ing is sought with such eagerness that duty 
receives but fugitive attention, it becomes 
a vice, and the more dangerous if it has paren- 
tal approval. That is a test which every par- 
ent can apply and the remedy should be quick 
on the heels of perception. 




NATURE'S LANGUAGE. 

A boy who does not love the forest is a boy 
only in years. All of us can recall a favorite 
tree, a shady nook in which dreamy reflection 
took possession of us when the flitting and the 
song of birds were the movement and voice of na- 
ture. And we are better because we can recall 
those experiences; they are resting spots for 
the mind when oppressed by the shallowness 
of life. There is no child who has found 
friendship with nature, who has not, thereby, 
injected some purity into his life. And the 
fountain is ever fresh with the waters of con- 
tent, when our imagination takes us back to 
early times when nature spoke to us in the lan- 
guage of the soul. 



Vs^\^\^ 



RELIGION IS LOVE. 

Religion in its true sense, divorced from 
malignant persecution of what is deemed error, 
purified of intolerance, superstition, and pre- 
tense of exalted goodness, is love pure and 
simple. There is no promise of the future 
that makes it so blessed as the hope that love 
has an existence which extends beyond the 
grave. The love of friends is the purest and 
most exalted element of life, the essence of 
the soul. It is unshaken by prosperity, it is 
triumphant over misfortune and makes existence 
sweet. The mother who mourns a child can 
have no conception of heaven higher, purer, 
holier, than a place where she will meet "the 
loved and lost, again." 

What in life is worth its survival except it 
be love? Hope at best is but a wish wedded 
to faith. But there is solace in the thought 
that the flower of sweetest fragrance is nour- 



ished by the tears which affection sheds, and 
blooms "where sorrow may not enter." If 
this life is but a preparation for another, higher 
and better, then the best and purest attribute of 
this should be allowed entrance into that realm 
whose gates of pearl it has opened. Love 
makes heaven possible and earth pleasant. It is 
the great heart of the universe, whose pulsa- 
tions are charity and good will; the life which 
is immortal, the hope that endureth. 




A GIRL'S EDUCATION. 

Girls have their future in their own hands. 
Fathers are too busy with affairs of business, 
and in planning for the future of their sons, to 
reflect that girls have a future, which includes 
something besides marriage or the prim acer- 
bity of old maidenhood. Mothers have too 
much concern for the requirements of the pres- 
ent to demand anything practical in the educa- 
tion of their children. To dress with taste, 
appear well at a party, be attractive and prop- 
erly religious, are the summun bonum in the 
early life of a girl, according to the mother's 
idea. But there are not a few girls whose 
eyes rest on the future, and who have a purpose 
beyond social pleasures and the delights of 
youthful love-making. They are not striving 
to cast off all feelings of responsibility, but 
they are acquiring strength to be able to dis- 
charge life's duties as become women. These 



are the true women, the leaders of a fashion 
which sinks deep into the current of life and 
developcs the womanhood which has not 
frivolity as its chief characteristic. The edu- 
cation which dignifies life with a purpose, has 
the elements of real beauty. Culture must 
reach character. A girl who has learned to 
sew well has given evidence of a higher con- 
ception of life's duties than one who has re- 
ceived a "polish" which precludes all know- 
ledge of domestic accomplishments. 




NEW YEAR'S DAY. 

The old year which was ushered in with 
manifestations of joy, has added one more link to 
the cycle of time. The old, old story, "The 
king is dead; long live the king," will soon 
undergo its annual repetition. The stream of 
time will flow unobstructed over the imagi- 
nary border which separates the Old from the 
New, bearing on its surface chaplets of laurel 
or wreathes of cypress, jewels of hope or 
tears of sorrow. Ambition will seek the 
"chamber of the gifted boy;" Discouragement 
will wait upon the footsteps of the timid; In- 
dustry and Indolence will claim their votaries, 
and sighs and laughter will be strangely com- 
mingled in that jumble of incongruities known 
as life. But all those who bore the burden 
of sorrow, and those who trod the table land 
of success, will at the next recurrence of this 
festival, join in hailing the advent of the new year 



and speeding the departure of the old. This 
life runs on until infinity is reached. Im- 
mensity stretches beyond the blue heavens, 
but Reason cannot follow Imagination beyond 
the precincts of this life. We are hedged in 
as Rasselas was in the Happy Valley and know 
not what lies beyond. The canker of discon- 
tent may eat into our hearts, but neither hope 
nor fear can pierce the mystery which circles 
the horizon of life. We have to do with 
this world and with this life; what lies beyond 
is but a corollary of these. Whether pinched 
by poverty, or blessed with wealth; burdened 
with misfortune, or crowned by success, we 
owe a duty to mankind which, if properly dis- 
charged, will add to the pleasurable emotions 
inseparable from this season. 



DUTIES OF PARENTS. 

Paternity brings duties wKich it is a crime to 
ignore. Children may be instructed in doc- 
trinal points of belief, and may have a superfi- 
cial coat of piety, but they need the affection- 
ate watchfulness of parents until character is 
fully formed. But that injudicious affection 
which constantly indulges every wish of a 
child, which takes pride in curtailing child- 
hood, and making women of girls, and men of 
boys, before age, or experience, fits them for 
the position, is more fatal than the repression 
that comes from dislike. It is now the fashion 
for girls, before the innocence of childhood 
has ripened into the experience of woman- 
hood, to ape the flirtations of young ladies, in 
years at least, attend balls, receive the atten- 
tions of boys who assume the habits of young 
men, and enter into paths beset by dangers. 
The mother will allow her child of fifteen to 



play the young lady without a thought of the 
consequences, but would be shocked if the 
child manifested a disinclination to attend 
church. The mother exercises no supervi= 
sion over the literature her child may read, 
though the country is flooded with the most 
pernicious kind, but requires constant attend- 
ance at Sunday school. Seemingly, to bring 
a child up in some religious denomination 
makes unnecessary any precaution to prevent 
the formation of bad habits, and relieves the 
fear of evil associations. It is wise to give 
religious instruction, but, without the much 
more impressive lesson taught at the fireside, 
it brings forth but indifferent fruit. The 
lessons taught in church are, in point of effect, 
second to those learned from a mother's lips. 
Home should throw its sacred influences 
around youth and guard it from evils which 
appear seductive. 



GOOD IN ABSTENTION. 

The man who discontinues some expensive 
and useless habit is benefited whether he does 
so in response to the promptings of his moral 
nature, or because decreased income suggests 
retrenchment. Man is always in danger when 
he can satisfy every wish. If things come 
easily to him he loses diligence and his char- 
acter is weakened. There is always good in 
abstention whether voluntary or forced. 




MOTHERING SUNDAY. 

Mothering Sunday, in the times gone by, 
is said to have been a festival, and the cus- 
tom to which it was sacred should give per- 
petuity to the day. Then, it was the practice 
to pay homage and respect to the old mother 
at the old home around which clustered the 
fondest recollections. It must have been a 
day devoted to feelings more holy and enno- 
bling than Thanksgiving Day brings forth, be- 
cause in Thanksgiving there is always a feel- 
ing of self, which keeps it from being entire- 
ly divorced from the bustling, busy, everyday 
life. Mothering Sunday was solely de- 
signed to bring happiness to the mother whose 
life had been deprived of that fountain of joy, 
the presence of her children. It offered a 
guaranty to her that, although the duties of 
mature life might have put a check upon the 
affection of her children for her, that affection 



still glowed with all the old time warmth. 
The adult children turned to the * 'light of 
home" on that day, bringing with them some 
token of love. The mother was the person to 
whom homage was paid. She was the load- 
stone who drew the fragments of the family 
together and made it again **one and indivis- 
ible.'' She was queen of the day — the 
old mother antiquated in dress, and, perhaps, 
uninformed in, at least heedless of, modern 
ideas of etiquette, but still the queen of the 
day, ==assuming those prerogatives which de- 
rive their charter from maternal love, and are 
guided by the promptings of the heart rather 
than by the grammar of formal etiquette. It 
would be a splendid thing to revive Mother- 
ing Sunday. It would be a delight to the 
mother and a blessing to the child who needs 
often to recur to the simplicity and unselfish 
afFection of the old time when love taught 
him duty. 



THE VIOLIN. 

There is something in the music of a violin, 
when touched by a master hand, beyond the 
power of description. It is more than melody. 
It has the fervent feeling of spiritual emotion 
and the deep pathos of human feeling. It is 
the unsyllabled language of the soul, -a vibrant 
beauty whose touch is exalting. No other 
instrument has the sympathetic fervor, the ca- 
pacity for sounding the most profound depths 
of the human heart, awakening its most deli- 
cate susceptibilities. It is a fountain of de- 
licious sounds, playing with the abandon of 
inexhaustible resource. 




PICTURE FROM NATURE. 

The tufa in the vicinity of the Yellowstone 
geysers forms a dust which is quite penetrat- 
ing, the sun's rays are reflected from the white 
rocks and exposed portions of the body suffer, 
and one is apt to get his feet wet without 
being aware of it because of the tepid 
character of the water. One leaves these 
basins with singular feelings. Here in 
close proximity are the eternal snows and the 
fires which quench not. The streams come 
down the hills cool with the icy breath of the 
mountains and mingle with the heated waters 
which seem to be the fevered sweat of a demon 
in agony. The sun beats down pitilessly on 
the sojourner in the valley, but the wanderer 
on the hill feels the breath of the Ice King. 
It is a land of contradictions, wonders and 
hardships. No wonder the Indian who has his 
faith quickened by seeing the flashings of the 



Northern Lights should view the place as the 
threshold of Hell. Science takes no cogni- 
zance of the supernatural, but the child of 
"untutored mind'' readily refers the inexplic- 
able to one of the Manitous, and here is a 
manifestation of power which fills him with 
dread, and he flies from the wrath which seems 
to threaten him. Poor savage! the hills no 
longer afford you refuge, and soon your race 
must seek an asylum in the bosom of that 
God whom you worship here in visible signs. 
You are doomed. The log cabin of the white 
man is planted in the shadows of the frowning 
mountains of Montana and his herds graze in 
the valleys where the Buffaloes once cropped the 
sear grass. There is no place too bleak, too 
forbidding, too far removed from everything 
which gives life value, for the man who is 
willing to make Montana his home. He 
might make his home on the sterile lava beds 
and find improvement in the change. In set- 



tling in Montana he has reached the acme of 
dreariness, cheerlessness, and hardship. Death , 
can have no terrors for him as it brings release, 
and the future can have nothing in store from 
which a soul can shrink. 




THE POWER OF LOVE. 

There is no higher force than love. It has 
inspired the lovers of humanity in all ages and 
countries. The love of country has caused 
the patriot to leave his blood-stained footprints 
on the sands and snows of a thousand fields. 
The love of home and family causes the hard 
hands of the toiler to struggle for the neces- 
saries of life. The love of humanity produc- 
ed the sacrifices of the Howards. The love 
of truth sustained the constancy of the martyrs 
of science and liberty, and causes the privations 
and sacrifices of the explorer who faces death 
amid arctic snows and cold and ice. Yes, all 
the tears that have been shed, all the prayers 
that have been offered, all the kisses given by 
the rosy lips of health to the ashen face of 
death, all the fond hopes expressed amid clouds 
and mists, have sprung from the great fountain 
of human affection, love. 



A COUNTRY BOY'S SUNDAY. 

There is a genuine pleasure in that day- 
dream which brings up visions of green woods, 
the cool stream, the joyous crowd of boys 
with no remembrance of the past, with no 
thought of the future, nothing to mar the 
pleasures of the present. There is glory in 
realized ambition; there is satisfaction in amass- 
ed wealth; there is gratified vanity in becom- 
ing famous, but for real unadulterated pleasure, 
the honest, simple hearted, country boy's Sun- 
day, untrammelled by conventionality, has in 
it a degree of pleasure which wealth and 
honor cannot give. 




AN OLD MISSION. 

There is an old mission a few miles from 
San Diego, away among the mountains. My- 
self and a friend set out for this historic spot, 
while others were busying themselves with 
things more modern and more interesting from 
the tourist's standpoint. The school has one 
hundred nine pupils, all Indian children. Noth- 
ing is taught but English, though Spanish is the 
language of the playground. The devotion 
of the children to the sisters in charge is one 
of the finest examples of the power of moral 
force I ever witnessed. There never was a 
time when I did not respect the noble women 
who have given their lives to charitable and 
benevolent work, but never did their self-de- 
votion appear more grand than in this isolated 
mountain valley amid the ruins of early effort, 
working in the interest of a race having noth- 
ing to give in return, and whose extinction is 



anticipated with pleasure by those who shape 
the sentiment which governs the age. The 
young Indians who attend the school are civi- 
lized in the best sense of the term. 

The sisters are well educated and their con- 
versation has the charm of naturalness which 
seems in keeping with their natural surround- 
ings. They stood with us among the ruins 
of the old mission until the stars came out, and 
the frowning hills seemed to shut in the val- 
ley from the outside world. One of them 
slipped away, and soon the children were sing- 
ing an old Spanish hymn. It was inexpressi- 
bly sweet, and as the notes were echoed from 
the mountains, it seemed as if unseen spirits 
were joining in the melody. If there is re- 
ligion worthy of the name, it nowhere finds 
better expression than among those grand old 
hills amid which those Spanish priests worked 
most faithfully for the Master. Nor can bet- 
ter exponents be found than those sisters 



whose good work has in it no element of 
selfishness and no hope of earthly reward, and 
who care not whether the world knows the 
good they are doing except in so far as 
knowledge of it may aid in enlarging the 
measure of its beneficence. 




THE CHILD BEAUTIFUL. 

A child is beautiful; beautiful for its in- 
nocence and confiding trust in the good inten= 
tions of all with whom it comes in contact. 
The parent, the school, the church can have no 
higher mission than to guard the beautiful 
child from the evils the years may bring. 
The bloom on the cheek will fade. Trouble 
will trace its indelible lines on the face, but 
the unstained character will look out through 
the clear eye with all the loveliness of younger 
days. 

The growing years of children make renew- 
ed demands on our care. Now is the time to 
inculcate habits which will be a safeguard 
against the attacks of vice. Do not seek to 
make children men and women by allowing 
them to indulge in amusements suited to adult 
age. Many amusements proper for grown 
persons are vices for children. Let them not 



be taught to look for pleasure in excitement. 
The child who lives in an excitable atmos- 
phere is taking poison into his moral system. 
The little girl who takes part in kissing games 
or anything of that nature, is applying the ax 
to the root of her virtue, the boy grows up 
to sneer at propriety in the intercourse of 
ladies and gentlemen. 

There is no better safeguard than reading, 
and that, at home; look to the child who never 
turns to a book with pleasure. That child will 
seek amusements in places where character is 
blasted, and the seeds of immorality are sown. 
Guard your child by giving him good habits as 
a talisman against vice. When the seeds of 
vice are sown early, they are not easily eradicat- 
ed; and when the flower of virtue receives ear- 
ly attention, it is not readily blighted. 



UNSELFISHNESS OF GIRLS. 

The boy as a rule is selfish, petted, spoiled. 
The girl receives no attention. She is not 
expected to make her mark in the world. But 
if parents would only make an inventory of the 
kind acts of their children, they would find the 
girls so pre=eminently in advance of the boys 
that it would be a question whether the latter 
were worth raising. It is because the girls 
are not raised in an atmosphere of adulation 
that they vend their energies in personal effort 
to rise, and succeed, while the boys, who arc 
promised a career, await its coming without 
eiFort on their part. 




THE FROST KING. 

Last week was a return of the old-fashioned 
winter when time was young in this land. 
The snow came down fast and furious, but re- 
mained where it fell, and the country roads 
were smooth, glassy and level, a delight to the 
traveler. There is between Meeme and 
Schleswig, Manitowoc county, Wisconsin, a 
forest, the most extensive in the county, the 
surface broken with deep ravines and rugged 
hills. A good road runs through this wood 
and a ride over it, on Wednesday last, were 
worth ten years of humdrum life. At a dis- 
tance, it looked like an immense orchard in blos- 
som, and one could almost fancy the winds 
were laden with the fragrance of May. Every 
twig was wreathed with garlands of filmy snow, 
with a delicate bordering of embroidery gather- 
ed from the humid atmosphere by the fairy 
touch of the Frost King. The evergreens 



drooped beneath their loads, forming beautiful 
canopies, fitting bowers for some fair Titania. 
There was a suggestion of peace in the whole 
scene, of purity, and an expression of beauty 
now seldom encountered since "the flowers of 
the forest" are "a wedc away/' 




MUSIC THAT IS ETERNAL. 

There is no person who is not, to some de- 
gree, a lover of music, and, in all stages of civi= 
lization, musical instruments, of some kind, have 
soothed troubled feelings, or aroused passions. 
But it is a singular fact, that those melodies which 
become most popular have in them something 
that touches the deeper emotions. A humor- 
ous song is short lived. It may amuse but it 
leaves none of that indescribable thrill that may 
properly be called the ecstasy of the soul. A 
song must have "soul'' to be immortal. The 
plaintive airs of the negroes, as touching in 
their sadness as they are beautiful in their 
simplicity, will last as long as melody has 
the power to please. The words may be, in- 
deed generally are, a meaningless Jumble, but 
the music is of such exquisite beauty, so clear- 
ly a product of the heart, that it has the power 
of touching that organ and making an impres- 



sion, which, like the memory of the dead, is 
sweet from its sadness. Men, instinctively, rev- 
erence those airs whose inspiration is from the 
depth of the soul. Vicious men, and those 
merry in their cups will sing humorous songs, 
but never one of the character under discussion. 
It would seem sacrilegious, a wanton effort to 
injure feelings peculiarly sensitive to impro- 
priety. 

The Irish are a people, though of a mercur- 
ial nature, subject to fits of despondency. Their 
airs are the language of the soul and are im- 
pregnated with melancholy. There are none 
sweeter, none more lasting. Scotch airs have 
also a suggestion of tears in them and gain im- 
mensely by the touch of sorrow. A patriotic 
song may stir, a lively one may amuse, but there 
is none that will sink so deeply in the heart as 
that which is born in sadness. 



THE HIGHEST PLEASURE. 

If Heaven ever touches Earth it is when 
mortal man finds pleasure in bringing happiness 
to others; when the spirit of charity is abroad 
casting out the demon of Selfishness from the 
hearts of men. 




AUTUMN. 

There is something in the approach of au- 
tumn, the border land of summer, that is 
depressing, just as if the shadow of death 
were brooding over the future. There are 
dark clouds in the sky which cut off the sun- 
shine; there is gloom in the heart which dark- 
ens hope and makes life ''scarcely worth liv- 
ing." The wind has a mournful cadence, and 
the trees sway as if the motion were a sigh of 
sorrow. Everything seems to harmonize with 
the prevailing spirit of sadness, and animate 
nature moans forth a dirge. Dew drops seem 
like tears, and the evening breeze is a sigh. 
The moon itself seems to wear a garb of grief 
and flits among the clouds, a tear-stained Diana. 
It is a season for men to grow mad, for an- 
guish to gnaw at the heart, and for melancholy 
to usurp the throne of reason. The retina 
only receives dark impressions, the tym- 



panum transmits none but doleful sounds. 
One is feasted on dismal thoughts on every 
hand until it becomes a regular symposium of 
sorrow. Those imps, the Blues, that feed one 
on dejection, are in their heyday, implac- 
able as a Nemesis, persistent as a Devil. They 
revel in gloom and drag one down to the 
Slough of Despond. Work is performed 
mechanically, and what in its nature is amuse- 
ment, is now a bore. One "sucks melancholy 
from a song as a weasel sucks eggs," and longs 
for night that he may seek forgetfulness in 
sleep — the twin-sister of Death. A miser- 
able world this, when the year is falling ''into 
the sear and yellow leaf"; and there is a linger- 
ing wish that the shadows which come from 
the West would bring that icy breath that 
gives forgetfulness and rest. 



THE MANLY BOY. 

Just as one predominant trait is an index of 
character, so the upbuilding of character in a 
school, is evidence of the excellent training 
that is given. Tom Brown's manly boy- 
hood, full of faults, though not grevious ones, 
the result of an excess of animal life and im- 
pulsiveness, is a field for the imagination of the 
youthful reader. It is the growth of healthy 
sentiment in a boy, this strenghtening of the 
moral fibre amid perplexities and under con- 
ditions which might lead to ruin, that gives in- 
spiration and arouses feelings of hopefuless. 
Tom Brown at Oxford is a living personage be- 
cause of the human sympathy which gives life 
to the story. No boy is good at all times. 
Tom Brown teaches that a boy may be good 
and still be a boy of many faults. 



MOTHER. 

There is no injunction which appeals more 
strongly to man's affection than that which 
reads "Honor thy father and thy mother/' 
When a man thinks of what his mother has 
endured for him, the affection she has lavish- 
ed on him, the sacrifices she has made for him, 
the faith she has in him. he must be worse 
than a brute if the warm current of his love 
docs not center in her, no matter what her 
faults. 




FOUNTAIN OF PIETY. 

The heart which is surcharged with charity 
to all is the fountain of true piety, and raises 
man to the uplands of practical religion. Pray- 
er is but the expression of thoughts which fill 
the soul, and deeds not words are its prop- 
er exponents, fesus, the son of Man, is a light 
to the skeptic no less than Jesus, the son of 
God, is the hope of the Christian who relics 
for salvation on the blood which was shed for 
man's redemption. Lofty church spires may 
not invoke piety in one whose heart will melt 
in ready sympathy in the presence of suffering. 
Christ ate with Publicans and Pharisees; mod- 
ern Christians persecute opposite sects: Christ 
wept over the dead Lazarus; Puritans enjoyed 
the suffering of tortured witches, but that 
"peace on earth," which was heralded by 
Christ's coming, is daily gaining strength and 
tolerance; charity and good will are extending 
their sway over humanity. 



POSSIBILITIES OF MAN. 

Nothing stands isolated and cut away from 
all the activities and influences of external agen- 
cies, and yet remains sufficient in itself to ac= 
complish a worthy end. The ocean steamship 
lying at the wharf, cold and motionless, has, 
within it, great possibilities, but not until the 
expansive power of steam, itself again depend- 
ent on the active agency of heat, quickens la- 
tent energies into life, and the throbbing engine 
sends the great wheels on their tireless rounds, 
does the mighty craft show its power. The 
acorn, hid in the darkness of the earth, covered 
with a carpet of virgin whiteness, has, within 
itself, possibilities that would make a forest 
giant to live through, and laugh at, the storms 
of centuries, but not until the potent influence 
of the sun causes nature's tears to kiss the 
warmed earth, can the future king of the sylvan 
grove be wooed from the bosom of nature. 



As it IS in the physical world, so it is in the 
realm of spiritual existence. The child, lying 
unconscious in its cradle, has, in it, possibilities 
that may "stir the laughter or the rage of mil- 
lions/' but not until the deft hand of nature, 
and the gentle influence of the living instruct- 
or, come to the rescue, are the latent powers 
aroused into living, expanding thought, search- 
ing for laws governing matter, intellect, and 
morality. Butmatter unfolds, ripens, sheds its 
fruit, and then dies, bequeathing the same ele- 
ments, with their possibilities neither impaired 
nor increased, to the succeeding generation of 
plant and rock; while in the region of mind the 
blossom IS ever more beautiful and fragrant, 
the fruit richer and more palatable, the whole 
inheritance greater in mass and in intrinsic val- 
ue, making the spiritual possibilities of man 
seem well nigh infinite in their range and pow- 
er. 

Why, then, should we not avail ourselves of 



all that is possible of the best thought, the 
sublimest emotion, and the clearest reasoning to 
be found on the social and ethical problems 
that confront human life? Man alone is to 
blame if "history with all her volume vast has 
but one page." Yet the words of the poet 
are delusive, for man is ever capable of prying 
deeper into the mysteries of nature, and if he 
is faithful in his activities he will be rewarded 
with solvents for the complex problems of life. 




THE GENIAL GERMANS. 

No one can appreciate the sturdy character 
of the Germans, their liberality, good fellow- 
ship, and freedom from bigotry, unless he 
mingles with them. No man, no matter what 
his nationality or his creed, can ever say that, 
socially or politically, he suffered at the hands 
of Germans because of his nationality or 
creed. But, to one on the outside, the ap- 
peals of the demagogues to the dominant race 
in this country naturally cause a prejudice which 
is wholly undeserved so far as the Germans 
are concerned. Their societies arc wholly 
different from those of other nationalities. 
Nationality is no bar to admission. In all so- 
cial relations there is an inborn courtesy 
which prevents any reflection on any nation- 
ality. The * 'outsider" who mingles with 
them is not made to feel that he is a trespasser. 
He is received openly and cordially, and if he 



does not feci at home it is his fault. These 
things are not known to those who do not 
mingle with the Germans. They are not 
susceptible of flattery, nor supersensitive to 
criticism, but the demagogues think they are, 
and employ the one, and avoid the other, not 
for the good of the Germans, but with the 
mistaken notion that their favor may be thereby 
won. The best way to win the respect of any 
nationality is to be independent and manly, 
never witholding criticism when the occasion 
demands it, and never indulging in obsequious 
adulation. 




THE INDUSTRIOUS STUDENT. 

The Industrious student rarely has occasion 
to complain of the hours spent in study. He 
has educated himself into the habit of giving 
attention to the matter in hand, and his powers 
are concentrated on the task. The complaint 
of over-study comes from the student who 
wastes time in permitting other subjects to 
share his attention while engaged in the per- 
formance of duty, and, dallying with a task, 
cultivates irresolution by his methods of 
work. The worry incident to a conscious 
lack of preparation, the time spent in 
listless endeavor, the mental disquietude in- 
duced by patchwork effort, and the bodily sym- 
pathy with mental inertia, are indeed symptoms 
of overwork. The writer has known parents 
to attribute every little sign of lassitude in 
their daughters to over-study, when the real 
cause was lack of thought, and need of work. 



Physicians cloak their ignorance, and flatter 
parents by their promptitude in discovering the 
source of difficulties in the severe exactions of 
the school, when in a majority of cases the 
prescription which would bring relief would 
be to advise the student to work more earnest- 
ly and dawdle less. 




WOMAN'S AFFECTION. 

A woman clings to life not because her fear 
of death is stronger than that of man, but be- 
cause she is more affectionate, truer to duty, 
and less beset by despair. Man's best quali- 
ties are revealed by the very activities in which 
he is engaged, but the depth of a woman's pur- 
pose, her strength of feeling, and capability 
for sacrifice, are never revealed until some 
emergency calls them out. There is rnuch 
that is noble and good hid behind frivolities 
which belie woman's nature, and frivolity is 
readily discarded when a demand is made on 
those womanly qualities, which are much more 
common than we suppose. A woman's friend- 
ship is not easily won, but when it is, its roots 
find a place in her soul. With capacity for 
suffering, she has acquired the strength to bear 
it more uncomplainingly than man. 



THANKSGIVING DAY. 

The heart that does not throb with a quick- 
ened impulse on Thanksgiving Day, must long 
have beat time to sorrov^'s measure. It is 
purely a secular holiday, borrowing no feature 
of solemnity from **fears of what is to be." It 
may not **knit new friendship,'' but it thaws 
the frost of selfishness from the heart, and 
quickens sluggish life with the instinct of good 
will. It crystallizes prayer into good acts, 
happy thoughts, and generous promptings. 
The busy, bustling world is shut out from the 
family group; a truce is called, and the soldier 
in the battle of life, everywhere, enjoys the 
brief respite. 

Why should not this pleasurable feature be 
an element of all holidays? At what higher 
purpose can religion aim than to bring joy to 
the heart of a child, rest to the troubled soul 
of the anxious parent, and to all, that elevated 



sentiment of kindly feeling, regard and charity, 
which always attends pleasant companionship? 
The prayer which agony wrings, which fear 
inspires, or selfishness dictates, may have an in- 
tensity of earnestness, but it does not gladden 
the heart. Make man happy, and his life is a 
paean of praise. And what is the source of 
happiness? Judicious enjoyment of the things 
that are. Oh, sad-eyed parent! look at the 
merry group which surrounds you to-day, and 
ask yourself if you have not found a surer way 
to the confidence and hearts of your children 
than through gloomy, lifeless precepts, with 
which you have clogged their minds, shutting 
out the genial warmth of parental solicitude, 
and establishing a censorship where should be 
loving guidance. Man of the world, when 
acting the devotee of that exaggerated fashion 
of giving large donations to ostentatious char- 
ities, have you, at such times, felt that expan- 
sion of soul which you now experience in be= 



Ing one of a group which numbers no sad hearts? 
And conscientious church=goer, has the clergy- 
man as, in studied phrase, he addressed the 
throne of the Most High, inspired you with 
that feeling of ''goodwill to men," that has 
taken possession of you while you aid in pass- 
ing around the well-filled plates. The ear 
that has never been attuned to any but doleful 
sounds, the eye that has never looked upon 
any but gloomy pictures, the lips that have 
never syllabled any but sorrowful words, have 
naught to do with the melody, the sunshine, 
and the sweet communion of this world. Their 
hosannas are choked with sobs; their hearts are 
fountains of bitterness. 



^ 



SPRINGTIME. 

There is something in the vigorous march 
of springtime, sweeping over the meadows in 
luxuriant depths of living green, flinging out 
the banner of fragrant blossoms from fruit trees 
to kiss the wooing breeze, which recalls 
the springtime of life, when the spirit was 
buoyant, hope strong, and the future cover- 
ed with the sheen of bright promise. *'The 
tender grace of a day that is gone'' may be 
brought back by an aimless ramble through 
the country one of these bright days. Nature 
is never more amiable. She woos you with 
profusion of flowers, and a melody as rich and 
dulcet as it is varied; the air is sweet with the 
fragrance of buds and blossoms, and the 
woods, in the fragile beauty of the tender leaves 
are as lovely as a tinted transparency. The 
bobolink at this season, a trill of joyous song in 
flight, is everywhere; the robin's note is never 



still; the catbird's voice is heard at intervals, 
and the blackbird's whistle sounds sweet in 
this symposium of song. Go out for a ramble 
and come back happy with having tasted some 
of the sweets of life, more worthy of search 
than the things of ambition. 




THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. 

The public school by performing its legiti= 
mate work properly, developes character, and, 
by strengthening good purpose, and teaching 
recognition and performance of duty, gives a 
moral tone to character which cannot be im- 
parted by dabbling in precepts. The trouble 
with our clergy generally is that they do not 
understand child nature. The child is in= 
capable of reasoning, and never directs his 
conduct by the religious teaching he receives. 
He is guided largely by direction of others 
until habit comes in as second nature to give 
trend to his actions. The true teacher sees 
that the child does promptly and in an orderly 
manner what it is proper he should do. The 
discipline of the school teaches him that a 
certain amount of self-denial on his part is 
made obligatory for the good of the little 
community in which he lives for a certain 



number of hours each day. His moral nature is 
strengthened by doing those things which con- 
stitute the basis of moral principle. Action 
is always antecedent to the formulation of 
the principle which is but an expression of 
what has been done. The public school 
teaches the thing by practicing it, both in its 
moral and intellectual features—one fortifying 
the other and making it complementary. 




SANITY OF WORK. 

We hear much of the evils of overwork, 
and ''breaking down'' is often mistakenly attrib- 
uted to severe mental or manual labor. Nerv- 
ous excitability and anxiety, when accompani- 
ments of labor, weaken the body and affect the 
mind. It is proper to distinguish these from 
labor, and to avoid their debilitating influence, 
but it is not wise to suggest cessation of work. 
The body inured to labor, and the mind accus- 
tomed to discipline, can best cast off the evils 
which beset them. Thought may bring weari- 
ness, and bodily labor exhaustion, but these 
are natural conditions, and nature provides a 
cure. It is when thought runs in forbidden 
channels; when imagination occupies itself with 
unwholesome pictures; when desires run to 
excess, that the weakness ensues which perma- 
nently impairs bodily and mental vigor. Those 
who fancy they suffer from overwork receive 



more injury from the character of the rest they 
take than from the labor they perform. The 
avenues through which weakness reaches the 
mind, are the emotions. These are quite 
active in young people, and their abuse invaria- 
bly results in that unhealthy mental condition 
which vanity ascribes to a worthier cause. 
Can healthy exercise of body and mind be 
carried to extremes? Rarely; because strength 
to withstand comes with increase of exercise. 
Good plain food is seldom, very, very seldom, 
indulged in to excess. The depraved appetite 
always longs for that which injures, and grows 
in weakness with increase in desire. As it is 
with exercise, so it is with mental activity, 
and when overwork is complained of, it is 
wiser to correct the perversion than to dis- 
continue labor. Very few people are injured 
from this cause which is described as if it 
were a national epidemic. Many suffer from 
want of wholesome employment. 



A HAPPY PHILOSOPHY. 

To the old, the new life which they are 
nearing, brighten it, as you may, with the ef- 
fulgence of divinity, is a place of exile, the 
paths to which, are beaten by the tottering 
steps of fear. Regrets for vanished youth 
cloud the vision of future bliss, and gratitude 
gives place to reminiscences sad as **the 
memory of buried love". As the years creep 
on they bring pleasure and pain. The one 
lights the eye but transiently, while the other 
leaves scars that time fails to heal. * * * 

From the gospel of love and friendship and 
quiet content, the true philosophy of life is 
preached. There is much gained if, even for 
one brief day, we snatch respite from care, 
anxiety, and toil. The Sybarite is not a whit 
more wasteful of life than the Anchorite, and 
the revel, which marks many a festal board, is 
far more conducive to that correct living and 



to that charity which **thinketh no evil" than 
is that solemnity of visage and bitterness of 
heart that comes from religious contemplation 
of the world's wickedness and one's individual 
trials. If the present offers pleasures, let not 
their enjoyment be marred by painful mem- 
ories of the past, nor by fruitless concern for 
the future. Let gratitude be uttered by the 
voice of mirth, and prayer be syllabled by the 
the lips of joy. 




SLANG. 

The persistent use of slang is an evidence 
in most cases of mental inertness. When it 
is the fashion to use a saying only expressive 
because of its novelty, a great many yield to it 
as they do to fashion in clothes, while refusing 
to express approval. But such persons tire 
of the silly utterances and return to rational 
words to express the ideas for which the slang 
was a stereotyped form. The slang expression 
may be used with effect by one who rarely 
uses it in conversation or public speech, but 
one cannot help deploring the tendency tow- 
ard slang. The fact is our young people are 
getting to use a sort of gypsy dialect, and 
have sentences ready framed to express a 
thought, without the necessity of thinking. 
Conversation has no charms for the reason 
that there is nothing new in it, simply a re= 
arrangement of the patent sentences prepared 



in the slang factory. And yet society would 
be shocked with an oath, something less censur- 
able than the addiction to slang, because it 
does not, in conversation, serve as a subject 
for thought. The words "chestnut" and "chest- 
nut-bell" in their brief run were a greater 
aggravation than all of the profanity since 
swearing was invented. The person who 
uses slang habitually should be made to wear 
the cap and bells. 



^$«0 



^ 





WINNING AN EMPIRE. 

The Texas Rangers won an empire by their 
prowess, and offered the fruits of their victory 
to the country in which their cradles were 
rocked. Strange fatuity of statesmanship! the 
offer was reluctantly accepted, and barely escap- 
ed rejection. When one travels over this 
magnificent state today, an empire in extent and 
achievement, with a future so full of promise, 
that present prosperity merely serves as an in- 
dex of what is to be, he cannot help thinking 
that the United States came nigh "throwing 
away a pearl richer than all his tribe/' It 
is glorious history which has descended to us. 
by reason of this acquisition, the struggles of 
the early pioneers; the war of independence not 
less glorious than our own; the Alamo, well 
named "the Thermopylae of America," the 
missions whose battered walls speak of the past 
when war was the handmaid of religion, and 



whose dark rooms bear testimony to the som= 
ber character of the religion of the early day. 
Texas has been misunderstood by the people 
of the North. It has within its confines every= 
thing essential to a nation's well-being. Itjs 
people are not typical Southerners, as they 
have a dash of Western breeziness which gives 
piquancy to the chivalrous courtesy of the 
South. 




GRANDEUR AND BEAUTY. 

All the lake cities are beautiful. Nature 
was in a pleasant mood when she blended gran- 
deur with quiet beauty along the shores of 
these great inland seas. The islands which 
break the broad expanse of water in northern 
Lake Michigan, are a feast to the eye with 
their dark wooded slopes. They seem to ab- 
sorb the sunshine in their languorous depths, 
and invite the mind to dreamy drowsiness. 
But the waters are treacherous as the scattered 
wrecks testify. There is no captain who does 
not breathe a sigh of relief when the laby- 
rinth channel through reefs and shoals is pass- 
ed on the way out from Escanaba, Michigan, 
and the undisturbed swell of the great lake is 
felt. 



^ 



HOME IS WOMAN'S SPHERE. 

The shop girl's training and her constant 
surroundings are not such as to elevate her 
ideal of life, and she is doomed, at best, to a 
miserable existence while unmarried. When 
she becomes mistress of her own house, she is 
a stranger to its duties, and her tastes unfit her 
to make home pleasant or cheerful. The girls 
who work as domestic servants receive, as a 
rule, wages fully up to their demands, and the 
training they receive is an excellent prepara- 
tion for the home in which they, themselves, 
are to govern in the future. They are labor- 
ing in woman's proper sphere; a field that their 
whole antecedent education should prepare them 
to improve and beautify by their intellectual 
acquirements as well as by their discipline in 
the household. Much of the misery now prev- 
alent among women has been incurred by 
their seeking to fill the positions of men, and 



those who preach equality for both sexes in all 
fields of labor are the authors of the mischief 
that has been done. Housekeeping is a high 
art. It will never be unsurped by men. It 
will always remain woman's field. How then 
can it be properly cultivated in all homes, if 
the heresy that woman should be allowed to 
compete with man in all work is to prevail? 
This pernicious philosophy has been advocat- 
ed by women whose hopes for a reign in a do- 
mestic circle were blasted, and the acerbity of 
whose tempers has given a wrong direction to 
their aspirations. 




FUNCTION OF EDUCATION. 

The long recognized function of education 
is to give to man control of his inner forces, 
to make him cognizant of the laws of the ma- 
terial and spiritual world, and to render him 
able to comprehend and apply them for his 
own liberal advancement. A properly educat- 
ed person is not a child viewing certain facts 
and occurrences as aberrations of Nature. On 
the contrary, he learns to reduce all events to 
a few higher denominations called the laws of 
the universe, while he looks with wonder and 
admiration upon the laws themselves, his soul 
swelling with emotion and longing for a 
glimpse at the unexplainable power that pro- 
duces order where the ignorant mind sees only 
chaos. 



LOYALTY TO HOME. 

The city would have been piloted to its 
grave if the crew had not mutinied and refus- 
ed to follow the course and thus saved the ship. 
The trouble was, a part of the crew rushed too 
fast, carried too much sail when they should have 
reefed, recklessly plunging along, heedless of 
the rocks and breakers, which it was liable to 
meet on its course, and the result has been, 
what was to be expected, that it met injury, 
but one which is not beyond repair. It has now 
gone into dry dock; the carpenters and calkcrs 
are gathering up material and in a short time it 
will be afloat again and ready to continue its 
course with renewed vigor, and with more ex- 
perience, secured by the late disaster, and with 
a better prospect of future success. 

The old ship may not be as large in dimen- 
sions, nor as grand in luxuries furnished, as 
some others are, but it has a beautiful model. 



is substantially built, and in it I will chance 
my life and all. to the end of my days. The 
anchor, the symbol of hope, is still at its bow. 
so let us not despair. 




VIEW FROM MT. WASHBURN. 

We ascended Mt. Washburn with horses, 
until they became an encumbrance, and then my- 
self and a clergyman pushed ahead on foot. 
Here were immense snow drifts, and above 
them in clear patches, bloomed the flowers. 
It was a singular companionship. On little 
shelves could be seen where animals had rested 
and everywhere were evidences of the inhab- 
itancy of the Rocky Mountain sheep. One's 
head swims before the summit is reached, and 
well it might, because this peak is 10,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. The top is flat, the 
gale piercing, the flowers many and beautiful, 
though the frosts are still there and what a beau- 
tiful panorama is spread before you! Clear 
around in an unbroken circle sweep the mount- 
ain peaks, their banks of snow glistening in the 
sunlight. What were somber pine forests when 
you rode through them are mellowed into a 



beautiful dark green, the inequalities being 
wholly hidden from the eye. The blue waters 
of Yellowstone Lake rise into view and the 
patches of meadows look like well kept farms. 
The whole park is beneath you cinctured by a 
chaplet of snow. It is a fascinating sight and 
one not quickly forgotten and repays one fully 
for the weariness of the ascent. 




FALLS OF MINNEHAHA, 

Minnehaha Falls are not high, nor is there 
a great volume of water tumbling over them, 
but they have a quiet beauty which charms one. 
The brook"it is not much else, -sings, through 
its whole course below the Falls until it is swal- 
lowed up by the river to which it is a tributary, 
a restful melody. The current is swift, but the 
stream never brawls. The rocky valley 
through which it plows is in perfect harmony 
with the rippling stream whose murmurs are 
gladsome sounds. The hills have no rugged 
features; they are softened with foliage and the 
whole place is pregnant with calm beauty and 
restfulness. Those laughing waters and their 
surroundings will bring to any one, once a 
country lad, the most pleasing recollections of 
woodland streams and forest paths. I never 
visited a place more conducive to restfulness, 
pleasing recollections, or complete banishment 



of worldliness. There is nothing approaching 
sublimity. Everything takes quiet possession 
of the heart in a gentle way, and one is inex- 
tricably in love without having felt the ap- 
proach of this Nature Cupid. 




THE MATERIALISTIC AGE. 

Our own age seems to have its powerful 
determining characteristics. It may be called 
the materialistic age. A scramble to gain 
wealth and distinction among the perishable 
products of man's labor, seems to be assuming 
the proportion of a national trait. Selfishness 
rules the human breast; and desire for gain too 
often makes people oblivious to their higher 
interests. Avaricious desire not only rules the 
individual, but its baleful influence creeps into 
every branch and fibre of the social organization. 
Every element of physical and intellectual 
power is now made subservient to man's pas- 
sion for gain, and turned into a producing 
agent at the earliest possible day. The learned 
professions are now entered by the merest 
novices in learning. Persons who scarcely 
know the functions of government, or the ele- 
mentary facts of history, are classed as lawyers; 



persons without a smattering of general scien- 
tific education, are called physicians; persons 
to whom mental science is a mystery, and the 
simplest principles of pedagogy vague or mean- 
ingless, arc called teachers; persons are often 
ordained to show the Way and the Truth without 
an acquaintance with society or a disposition 
to drop the plummet to sound the depths of 
human passion; and the vast army of children 
is withdrawn from school at an early age to 
learn trades, or earn bread at some form of 
manual labor. 




LIFE. 

Life is a unionof joys and sorrows of passing 
clouds and flitting sunshine. -Jts pathway is 
sometimes beautified by pleasant flowers and 
again darkened by somber shadows. The moth- 
er who bends with loving solicitude over the 
cradle of her child has a fountain of Joy in her 
maternal aflFection. But the love-light in her 
eyes is often quenched in tears and her affec- 
tion brings forth a fruitage of sorrow. Grief 
is a parasitic plant which feeds on love, and 
the smile of to-day is often but a prelude to 
the tears of tomorrow. 




KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. 

Bulwer, in his Varieties of English Life, 
devotes a chapter to the refutation of the max- 
im, '^Knowledge is power/' The many in- 
ventions of the nineteenth century, all useful, 
many curious, give to the industrious student 
a power transcending that of the mightiest po- 
tentate. The seemingly idle speculations of 
profound thinkers often crystallize into that 
which promotes the cause of civilization to a 
greater degree than does the labors of a gener- 
ation of statesmen. The closet has done more 
toward the advancement of the interests of 
mankind than have legislative halls. Fast up- 
on the splendid results which came from a 
knowledge of the properties of steam came 
the inconceivably quick transmission of mes- 
sages through the agency of electricity. The 
telephone with its miraculous reproduc- 
tion of tones makes the wonders of the tele- 



graph seem commonplace. The phonograph 
appears next on the scene, with its seemingly 
incredible capacity of conserving sounds, to 
give us almost unbounded faith in the omni- 
potence of science. A membrane, a grooved 
cylinder and a stylus are endowed by the intel- 
lect of man with a faculty, which, heretofore, 
has been peculiar to Nature's most perfect or- 
ganism, and makes the fable of Frankenstein 
seem a reality. With the wonderful achieve- 
ments of science before us, Tyndal's labors to 
discover the principles of life should not be 
prejudged as the fruitless efforts of an enthusi- 
ast. The miracles which science performs to- 
day are great enough to win belief in the di- 
vinity of man. 




VIRTUE IS RESERVED. 

Virtue is reserved not obtrusive. When- 
ever a parade is made virtue is absent. Not 
that it is lacking in assertion, but that it has 
modesty as its chief characteristic. There is 
no man living who is wholly pure, there are 
some women, but they are not given to adver- 
tising the fact by condemning those who have 
fallen. Virtue is more compassionate and 
charitable than vengeful and relentless. Os- 
tentatious virtue is hardly superior to unobtru- 
sive vice. 




MIDSUMMER. 

There is rare beauty in the woods in midsum- 
mer which no one can fully appreciate but he 
whose memory is a storehouse of pleasant re- 
collections gathered in that early period when 
**life was love." The patches of sky seen 
through the rents in the green curtain of na- 
ture's weaving, flecked with shreds of fleeting 
clouds, bring to mind the heaven of childhood 
which needed not doctrine or philosophy for 
its revelation. The winds seem to have a 
softness and fragrance which lull the spirit to 
rest and thus blot out the harshness of life. 
Rest, now, has no feature of languor and the 
vigorous, happy life with which one is sur- 
rounded is inspiriting. There is no prescription 
that can match the woods for efficacy. 



THE BELLE AND FOP. 

There are many women whose natures, from 
birth to maturity, systematically eliminate ev- 
ery germ of womanly worth, who are moulded 
into creatures of fashion, fit companions for 
man who loves beauty without a soul, and are 
"ordained to flutter and to shine and cheer the 
weary passenger with music." But this is 
training and not a development of inherent 
traits. They are distorted women, a growth of 
false ideas, a misconception of beauty; flowers 
made neutral to please the eye at the expense 
of their worth. 

Man born to wealth, or reared with the 
same disregard for future usefulness that char- 
acterizes the training girls receive, is as worth- 
less a member of society; of as little conse- 
quence in this progressive world, as the gay 
belle who has no thoughts beyond personal 
adornment and fashionable enjoyment. Every 



thoughtless, giddy girl, can be matched by a 
brainless, worthless fop. While her virtues 
are negative, his vices are positive. Women 
need have no fear to institute comparisons be- 
tween the showy members of both sexes. 




THE BOOK OF NATURE. 

How sad to think of a man living three 
score years and ten, never for one moment con- 
sidering a simple law governing the world! 
This in a country that pretends to give people 
an education. But once open the book of Na- 
ture and what an endless source of enjoyment is 
exposed to the intellectual view. The world 
would no longer be looked upon as a finished 
product; the vulgar conception of the few years 
of its existence would expand into untold mil- 
lions, and the apparently finished beings would 
be seen to be the work of hidden forces oper- 
ating through endless ages that have lapsed. 

The study of Nature not only gives enjoy- 
ment but furnishes food for thought which nev- 
er need be dug from a stagnant pool. This 
is an age of science, and the application of it, 
and consequently its study should be made a 
part of the training of every child. 



PATHOS IN SONG. 

There is no place where song appeals to the 
heart and stirs it in sympathy with infinite ten- 
derness, of which song is the language, that the 
Suwanee River is not known through the 
matchless melody which bears that name. The 
pathos of this song exceeds that of Home 
Sweet Home while the burden of its sorrow 
is sweeter in its simplicity and more earnest 
in its tender longings. It is dispair, finding 
voice in the universal language which reaches 
consciousness through the heart, which speaks 
with the fervor of instinct. 




DICKENS AND CARLYLE. 

One cannot read a sketch of the lives of 
Thomas Carlyle or Charles Dickens without 
a feeling of indignation at the abuse which 
their wives received. --Dickens's was deliberate 
cruelty, driving out from his heart the woman 
he had promised to cherish and making her life 
a wreck because her intellect did not keep pace 
with his. When we read some of his beauti- 
ful passages on child life and woman's love, 
knowing how unmanly, realized ambition made 
him, we cannot help believing that the divine 
sympathy, which he painted so eloquently, was 
nothing more than sentiment cast off in the in= 
tercourse of practical life. This discarded 
wife appears in the background and in the elo- 
quence of sorrow, hardship, and suffering takes 
the coloring out of his beautiful words. 

Carlyle was cruel, but unconsciously so. 
His wife was a superior woman, not equal to 



her husband in intellectual force, but vastly 
so in all the qualities that give beauty to life. 
But she lived alone. She was not the confi- 
dant of her husband, though worthy of being 
so by virtue of a well cultivated mind and a 
tender solicitude for which its object was un- 
worthy. She admired rather than loved the 
intellectual giant with whom her life was 
linked, and he was more intent in adding to his 
own literary fame than in contributing to her 
happiness, and this when she had voluntarily 
resigned everything for his sake, when every 
thought was for him, every deed an act of love 
or kindly ministration. From the fame the 
man has acquired, we are apt to lose sight of 
the neglected woman yearning for the society 
of her husband, and made to feel that a woman's 
highest duty is to toil for the man she marries. 
Neither wealth nor fame can compensate for 
the love of a true, pure woman, andCarlylc in 
requiring affection, without recognizing or re- 



turning it, lays himself justly open to the im- 
putation of cruelty and disregard of man's high- 
est duty. The affection of his wife was 
worth more to him than the praise of the 
world, and he would deserve the latter more, 
had he had more consideration for the woman 
whose life he made unhappy. 




PREPARATION FOR EASE. 

The tendency of the age is toward higher 
education, not for the pleasures incident to in- 
tellectual culture nor for that strength of char- 
acter proceeding from the philosophy which 
mental acquirements breed. This is because edu- 
cation enlarges opportunities for the acquisi- 
tion of wealth, enables one to rise above the 
necessities of manual labor and brings a cer- 
tain amount ofpraise which is, at best, nothing 
but flattery with a gloss of refinement. Every 
motive, hope, and aspiration has in it something 
of the earth, earthy; a base of selfishness, a 
framework of cupidity with an ornamentation 
of honorable ambition. Law, medicine, aad 
theology, the three great professions, which at- 
tract genius, are departments in which that gen- 
ius glorifies itself, the benefit to mankind, if 
any accrues, or the fuller exposition of prin- 
ciples, if such is the result, is but an incident 



of this pre-occupying purpose. This is the 
loftiest purpose which animates people in the 
honorable professions. The fame which learn- 
ing brings is the incentive **to scorn delight 
and live laborious days," and not the purely 
intellectual pleasure of overcoming those dif- 
ficulties which obstruct the pathway of the 
mind to the uplands of thought, or that benevo- 
lent purpose of giving light that man may be 
happier. 

Of the many young men attending school, 
how very few realize that the education they 
are receiving is designed to fit them to be bet- 
ter members of society, to enable them to dis= 
charge with more efficiency the duties they 
owe themselves, and to recognize those com- 
plex mutual relations which society imposes. 
That it is to elevate them in sentiment, and to 
assist nature by acquired intelligence. The 
graduate of the high school feels as if the 
modicum of learning, of which he has become 



the possessor, raises him above the level of 
common humanity and that his destiny is to 
be carried out in the battlefield of life where 
mind and not muscle contends. A difference 
in the means of supplying bodily wants is, to 
his understanding, the line of demarcation be- 
tween the aristocracy of intellect and the 
commonalty of labor. Indigence with uncal- 
loused hands is preferable to plenty without 
the social distinction of being above manual 
labor. 

With three-fourths of the boys and young 
men between the ages of four and twenty, 
looking forward to the presidency, a large 
percentage of the remainder more modestly 
ambitious, but working that their **lines may 
be cast in pleasant places," where are our pro- 
ducers to come from? With the misconception 
which obtains of the object of scholastic 
knowledge, are we not educating too much? 
If the inevitable result of schooling beyond 



the rudiments, is to raise a young man above 
himself and produce a distaste for labor, is not 
ignorance preferable? It is evident, the fault 
is not in education. There is no labor which 
intelligence will not dignify. But it is the 
purpose for which education is sought; the 
false aspirations which have their birth in the 
many dissertations on the "advantages of edu- 
cation," which verify the proverb that a "little 
learning is a dangerous thing." 




A PRIMEVAL FOREST. 

Twenty miles east of Antigo, Wisconsin, 
are primeval forests and a stream aptly named 
the Evergreen runs through them. This 
river charmingly combines the babble of the 
brook with the rush of the mountain stream. 
The solitude of these heavy forests is rarely 
disturbed by the human voice, while the rippl- 
ing waters break upon the silence with sooth- 
ing and pleasing harmony. In the clear, cool 
waters of these woodland streams, fed by per- 
petual springs, the brook trout thrives. He 
is in charming accord with his surroundings. 
Rapid as a flash of light, glistening with the 
beauty with which he is in perpetual contact 
and game while a throb of life remains, he 
seems to be Nature's metaphor for a happy 
union of agility and grace. 




THE BAD LANDS. 

The Bad Lands lie in the western part of 
Dakota and the eastern part of Montana. They 
are now known by the more euphonious name 
of Pyramid Park, though the first is more ap- 
propriate. The hills are a queer formation, 
rising abruptly from the plains, barren, bleak 
and stupendous, they give the surrounding 
country the appearance of being blighted by a 
curse. They are a mass of clay without life, 
without vegetation, a corpse of clay with no 
hope of a future. Their appearance is an 
explanation of their origin, volcanic eruption; 
a boiling without an outbreak, as uninviting a 
piece of work as Nature ever fashioned. 
Some of the scrubby trees, common to this 
section, started a sickly growth on the un- 
inviting sides of the hills. But the inhospit- 
able soil did not afford them means of life and 
they perished. A vigorous tree on the Bad 



Lands would be the Marriage of Death and 
Life. The eastern ridges of the Rocky 
Mountains are the Bad Land hills on a more 
stupendous plan. Bare, barren, snow clad and 
forbidding, they frown on the valleys at their 
feet. Distance does not soften their rugged 
features and their sides and summits are devoid 
of verdure. Their rugged crests cut the blue 
sky sharply and the snow glistens in the sun- 
light. But one turns from the view with any- 
thing but a feeling of pleasure. The valleys 
even, are not fertile, and seem a fit complement 
for the sterile hills. Colonies of prairie dogs 
sit on their haunches and look unconcernedly 
at the passing train. Passengers with revolv- 
ers and little sense, blaze away at the little 
animals, but it does not make much difference 
to them. 



A VIGNETTE. 

The gilding of the hills by the slowly sink- 
ing sun gives the valleys the charm of dreamy 
repose which is inexpressibly soothing, and 
wooded slopes seem to grasp the shadows as if 
they were the mantle of the coming darkness. 




GOOD ADVICE. 

"Keep your children in at nights." These 
were the last words addressed to parents by 
Henry Ward Beecher. They are wise and 
timely. The conditions that called them forth 
exist in all cities. There are parents so in- 
dulgent and forgetful as to permit their girls, 
attending school, to enjoy the company of cal- 
low youths who put on airs and perambulate 
the streets with their "girls'' by their sides. 
Young people ape the virtues and adopt the 
vices of their elders at too early a date, and it 
may well be questioned which are more de- 
structive of character. If the vices of drink- 
ing, smoking, and social dissipation seem una- 
voidable they should, if possible, be postponed 
until the physical organism can better with- 
stand their evil tendencies and until judgment 
is so clarified that moderation will not inter- 
fere with the recuperative forces of nature or 



make the person a victim of a slavish habit. 
Parents should recognize that certain phases of 
virtue when too easily acquired are not one 
whit less injurious than a vice, for they too 
often lead to a vice. 




INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT. 

No reform was ever instituted, having pre- 
judice for its corner stone. To teach that a 
man who is successful is to be hated, is to teach 
that persistent effort, industry and frugality 
are vices, and that personal ambition is to be 
discouraged. The work of reform, if it is to 
be successful, must be prosecuted with the in- 
struments at hand. No community was ever 
made better by sudden revolution, and no man 
was ever fired, by manly resolution, to better 
his circumstances while repining at his lot and 
giving heed to the teachings that his distress is 
wholly due to causes outside of himself. When 
a man rallies his own forces and makes them 
active in his own behalf, he seldom finds it 
necessary to demand that the progress of his 
neighbor be checked so as to preserve equality. 
He can do more by exercising his own forces 
than he can by an attempt to hinder others from 



Lore. 



acquisition so that in the general distribution 
of what chance gives, his share may be increas- 
ed. Improvement in society comes through 
the improvement of the individual. It is a 
better cause to warn people against their own 
faults than it is to influence them against those 
of others. No man is made better by having 
his attention constantly called to the harm oth- 
ers are doing. 




SELF RESTRAINT. 

In avoiding prudery, people should not run 
to the opposite extreme of license, and young 
persons cannot aiFord to defy decency, or dare 
the condemnation of people of staid habits and 
approved judgment. The ordinary rules of 
politeness should be observed at all times, and 
being one of a large assemblage, in no way 
justifies that remissness which leads to vul- 
garity. Society should interpose restraints 
not incite laxity. To be boisterous at gather- 
ings is to be ungentlemanly; to chatter inces- 
santly is to be undignified and discourteous. 




SENTIMENT. 

No one wants to stay the hand of progress. 
But enterprise should sometimes yield to sen- 
timent. The song of the bird is sweeter to 
the ear than his morsel of flesh is to the palate. 
Man has a heart as well as a stomach, and the de- 
mand of the latter should not forever crush out 
the longings of the former. 




JOHN NAGLE'S PHILOSOPHY 
Done into print by Herman Charles Berndt, 
in the year of grace MDCCCCI, in 
the office made famous by the 
brilliant mind and unique per- 
sonality of the author of 
the philosophic reflec- 
tions herewith 
issued. 






,^^ 









) V 









0* 
4 o 








lV->> 



0* 




: -ov^ :4 






^> <^^ .-. -^^ ^ ^ "^ <V C3 "o.o 





^9 ^ 




^'^•' -i^^^M^t ^^^^ ^^«m:^ ^'^^c,^" .'A\\M/Ao >..^ 






< * o, "^^ 



A Deacidified using the Bookkeeper 



^O t*^* O «'* c°°« Treatment Dater r r. 

h O 'j \1!n>S^» * -^ '^ ' '^?5v/'i/iW . / ^^ PRESERVATION TECHNOLO( 






IBBKKEEI 



/i*o ci>- -CV. ^•.^^f^^*- •^. 






Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 




V .. -^ 



^: .0 



.0 - " \°' v> 




^'^-n^. 









4 C3 



4^"^^ '^u -^^^' 



,\ 



<&' 




\'^ .. '^ 









-,<■)>«> ♦ -*i 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

IlilllilllllllililllilllL 

015 762 790 9 # 



trti?^^*:- 



BMu 



mm 



M 



% 



